Monthly Archives: February 2012

The Ontario Superior Court has granted certification in the class action against Thomson Reuters/Carswell for copyright infringement over allegations of reproducing copies of court filed documents. The class includes lawyers in private practice who have authored materials filed with the courts and reproduced in Carswell’s “Litigator” offering.

Utility, selection patents and sound prediction were key issues identified in an analysis of the cases cited in the 132 IP decisions released in 2011 by the Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal. The most cited cases related to standard of review, and from the Supreme Court, the 2008 Sanofi decision, Whirlpool, Consolboard and Wellcome.

The European Court of Justice released a decision last week in SABAM vs Netlog (C-360/10) denying a request that a social network site install general filters against the exchange of copyrighted music and videos. In Canadian copyright news, Bill C-11, the copyright amendment Bill went to committee with a schedule to review the bill by the end of March.

The Supreme Court of Canada has released a couple of decisions of interest – Merck Frosst Canada Ltd. v.Canada (Health), 2012 SCC 3 relating to trade secrets and access to information of Health Canada drug submissions and Reference re Broadcasting Act, 2012 SCC 4 which determined that Internet Service Providers were not ‘broadcasters’ under the Broadcasting Act.

The Supreme Court has adjourned the hearing in the appeal of the sildenafil PM(NOC) application on the sufficiency of disclosure. The hearing had been scheduled for tomorrow but is now tentatively scheduled for April 20, 2012.

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I am a partner at DLA Piper (Canada) LLP practicing in the area of intellectual property. Material on this website are my own views and do not reflect the position of DLA Piper (Canada) LLP, any of its member firms around the world, or any of its clients. IPPractice.ca grew out of my hobby to gather and share interesting updates on intellectual property to friends and colleagues. This website does not provide legal advice, and should not be relied upon. Hope you enjoy the site - Alan Macek